


Moving Towards Unity

by Merfilly



Series: Twice the Maul [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 18:45:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13596105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: Obi-Wan and his Nightbrother allies slowly move toward being able to work together on dismantling history as Obi-Wan and the elder Maul knew it. Slowly being the key word.





	Moving Towards Unity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SLWalker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/gifts).



Obi-Wan Kenobi looked at the motley crew he was now shepherding along a path that none of them could see fully. The elder Maul had levered himself down to the floor, and was teaching Feral a strategy game, while the younger one and Savage were at the table proper, working through a dejarik game.

Obi-Wan felt a twinge of guilt for the youth of the little Nightbrother, but Savage had refused to leave him behind. At sixteen, the boy was older than some padawans that had faced the war directly, but that was not a metric Obi-Wan was comfortable with any longer.

"Now that we have acquired your family, Maul… elder, that is… what is our next move?"

Maul looked up at him, though the younger did not; that was an improvement. The younger warrior was, in Obi-Wan's opinion, still wary about all things Kenobi-shaped and tended to be paranoid about this whole task.

"Ahh, no," Maul the Elder said, shaking his head. "If you recall, Kenobi, I spent a good part of a decade not truly aware of the galaxy at large, courtesy of _someone_ not following through properly in handling an enemy."

"How was I to — No, nevermind." He sipped at the tea he had steeped, thinking. "We will need resources, a base of operations, and to carefully plan out the next steps in this shadow war. Interfering with Kamino will tip our hand too soon. Removing Dooku, likewise, just opens a different, unknown path for Sidious."

Now younger Maul did look up, teeth bared in something that was approaching defiance. The weeks since they had acquired Savage had done some good to help the man. While Kenobi looked at the man and was haunted by Adi's death, at least in the first days of their acquisition, he had to honestly admit that Savage was a good influence on both Mauls and seemed to care for Feral.

Feral returned that care, and was slowly winning over the younger Maul's protective instincts. The elder of the pair was actually relaxing away from his drive to end this all immediately with the challenge of teaching both Savage and Feral to use their Force sensitivity.

Again, Obi-Wan wondered at this unholy team he had, and came up hard against the fact that nothing was ever truly as absolute as either the Order or the Sith wanted to paint it.

He turned his mind back to the problem at hand. Coruscant was out, no matter that the Temple should shield their presence as just a few more Force users. That was too much to ask of either Maul. Alderaan —

— No, kriff it all, he realized. Bail Antilles had retired following his defeat for the Chancellery, and Bail Organa had been tied up taking the reins as Senator, rising to the forefront of the peace faction until Amidala had come along.

Naboo was out without even considering it. Tatooine was unbearable to think about and too far from what they would need. They would stick out heavily on any world that tended to homogeneous populations. 

Corellia?

The Five Brothers were inhabited by mixed species, and surely they could find a way to blend in, or at least stay out of sight, during their preparations for the war ahead. Obi-Wan desperately hoped that they could avoid the war, but he had to plan for all possibilities.

Obi-Wan finished the tea, put the mug away, and went to research the Five Brothers to choose the best for them to work from.

* * *

While Zabraks were not common anywhere in the galaxy save a handful of planets they originated on or had traded with, Drall was multi-cultural enough to give them a chance to live their lives carefully out of the light of any interested parties. The four, in a group, actually only caused a stir if Obi-Wan was with them. He had traded his robes that marked him for a Jedi out and opted for clothing similar to the local merchants. It made some wonder if he was marketing exotics.

The last thing he wanted at this point was to draw down the local branch of Jedi. He didn't think that would be wise, as they concentrated on drawing the younger Maul out of his reticence and distrust. While the brothers learned and honed their combat skills, a point that the younger Maul wound up taking over without being prodded or asked, Obi-Wan wrote down countless little aggressions that led, eventually, to full-blown war, looking for the right angle to crack the problem.

"We're going to need evidence, proof, or… to force his hand in showing himself as a Sith," he muttered one night, the elder Maul near at hand looking over histories, trying to piece together a bigger picture than he had possessed.

"So your vaunted Jedi can take him down legally?" Maul drawled disparagingly. 

"No, so that the Republic can get to work uncovering all of his dealings and stand a chance of averting galactic misery and suffering," Obi-Wan snapped at him. He then reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I apologize, Maul. That was uncalled for."

Maul had opened his mouth to snipe back and then… stopped, making Obi-Wan look that way. His old nemesis was looking at him with confusion, before he managed to school his features.

Obi-Wan started to ask if that was the first time he'd had an apology, thought better of it, and forged on. "The Republic is broken. So is the Order. I concede these points. But we do not have the time, energy, resources, or the machinery it would take to burn it to the ground and start over without a lot of pain for people who just want to live their lives as free as they can."

Maul grimaced, but Obi-Wan thought he'd made his point, on some level, and went on. "We need to break Palpatine's network or expose him. One or the other."

"Then, you need to learn all you can on a man named Hego Damask, if that is the angle we will take."

Obi-Wan considered that name for a long moment. "My master mentioned that name. An argument, from one of the last times he had seen his master in a favorable setting. I thought Damask was killed?"

"Perhaps he has been, but I have come to know he was Sidious's master," Maul said, barely constrained betrayal in the tones.

"Then, that will be where we begin," Obi-Wan told him. "I suppose I have to brush up on my slicing skills."

* * *

There had been weeks of … peace? A lack of pressure? 

Maul shook his head and pulled himself up off the pallet from beside Feral, careful to not disturb the youngest of them. The youth was coming along as a fighter, but he did not have the same drive and instinct for it as Maul. 

Then again, neither did Savage, at least the instinct part. Savage's fighting style was better suited to defense. It had made Maul adapt his own idea of a fighter, made him attempt to adapt to teamwork, so that Savage handled defense and he took on the offense.

When they did tandem training, it was actually how the elder version of himself and Kenobi tackled things, though they still fouled each other up more than he and Savage did.

That brought a small glow of satisfaction, to see a skill he was better at than the elder. He was the better fighter, at least in straight technical skill, but the elder Maul was sneaky, and used trickery to make up for his age and disability.

He padded out into the pre-dawn chill, his thoughts stumbling over his status and family. Kenobi seemed to be directing things, which still chafed the warrior. He was supposed to hate the Jedi, and did. The elder Maul said it was a waste of energy, though, that the Jedi would destroy themselves no matter what, being at the end of their dynamic potential already.

The younger man wondered how much of that was wishful thinking, and how much was a calculated push to keep the glory of destroying the Jedi for himself.

He came around the corner of the small house, and came up short, baring his teeth as he saw Kenobi sitting cross-legged, spine stiffly erect, in meditation. Why couldn't he just end the Jedi now, and let his elder self guide their course instead?

"Join me?" Kenobi had the gall to call quietly to him.

_Know your enemy._

The whisper of the words set Maul's skin to prickling. He'd argued with his elder self, but without conviction, about the idea that Sidious answered to another. The evidence had been there. Perhaps, if he had accomplished the mission on Tatooine, Sidious would have trusted him further, and he would have learned that Damask was nothing but a step in their own plans.

He didn't really believe that, though, as he had not felt any true search for him press against his shields.

Sidious had cast him off, probably for the Fallen Jedi that Kenobi had mentioned in one of their planning sessions.

"Would you prefer I go inside instead?"

Kenobi's words jarred Maul away from the thoughts that ringed nebulously around vengeance for his betrayal.

"No."

"Then please; come and sit, so that both of us might attempt to find what we seek before the others are awake."

The phrasing, like the invitation, set Maul further on edge, but he found himself coming to sit in front of Kenobi, facing him with suspicion and bringing his knees up in front of him to wrap his arms around them loosely. 

"You despise me. I feel it in every look. And, I admit, I spent much of my life returning that loathing. My Master, for all his flaws, had been my dearest friend for years," Kenobi said, meeting Maul's gaze evenly.

Maul bared his teeth in defiance of the Jedi. "Even my elder self said he was a coward who ran from a fight!"

Kenobi did not rise to the angry denunciation as Maul might have hoped, but instead took on a quietly thoughtful look. "In knowing Savage and Feral, now, would you choose to press a fight against an unknown opponent, or pull back to protect them and learn more of that opponent, to better set the battle on more even footing?"

Maul considered. His first answer, that the best defense was a solid and strong offense, felt wrong in the moment. Faced with unknown vectors posed by an opponent he did not know, would he truly risk the younger brother? Feral had a way of making him feel calm, of quieting old pains and unease. He trusted Savage to defend, but inherent in Kenobi's questioning was the assumption that Maul himself would be the difference in success or failure.

"It felt cowardly to my elder self," he muttered. "He told me of that, of killing the man later."

"For that action, I thought I had killed him, and then we fell into a years' long antagonism, yes," Kenobi said. "None of which had an actual effect on the greater dynamics of the Sith rise to power, or mattered in the long run.

"I am not asking you to stop hating the Jedi. Or me in particular as the face of the Jedi you now deal with. What I ask is that you find your own path while entertaining the concept that maybe, just maybe, the path of destruction your master set off does nothing good for anyone, especially those he used to get there.

"You included."

Maul started to retort, but then thought of his elder self's less lucid moments, when the pain from his legs and the fissures in his mind coincided to lead to vitriol-fueled rants against Kenobi and Sidious and Talzin alike. What had brought him to that point was an unfolding mystery, learned in the moments when the elder was running his mouth furiously, or in the bits Feral and Savage had coaxed out.

"I will consider this," he said stiffly, and Kenobi let that topic drop. Minutes stretched out in silence, as Maul did consider the potential truths and deceptions in all of this, all of his existence, before he looked back at the house, considering his brothers, this life ahead of him. "I am still a prisoner. If I stay, I am expected to help your mission. If I go, Sidious will hunt me if whispers of my survival escape."

Kenobi reached and very lightly set his finger tips on one of Maul's hands. "I think, young one, we are all prisoners in this. But that doesn't keep us from bringing our unique perspectives to it to make it bearable." 

Maul leaned back from the touch, but only slowly, because the contact had brought a whisper of the truth, of honesty, that made his conflicted emotions whirl. Jedi were meant to be hated.

The words, though, lingered, even when he chose to rise and go back inside. There were too many angles to think about, and the Jedi did not help.


End file.
